White House: Furloughed government workers should plan to work Thursday

Thanks to the partial government shutdown, they'd been off the job for more than two weeks. Now they're ready to return to work

October 16, 2013 8:17:18 PM PDT

WASHINGTON --

The White House's budget office says federal workers should expect to return to work Thursday morning as the partial government shutdown comes to an end.

The House and Senate both passed a measure late Wednesday to reopen the government and avert a federal default. Obama has not yet signed the bill.

But Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said Obama would sign the bill overnight. She was instructing federal employees to follow the news and to check the Office of Personnel Management's website for further updates about returning to work.

The measure awaiting Obama's signature restores government funding through Jan. 15 and extends the nation's borrowing authority through Feb. 7.

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been furloughed since the shutdown started Oct. 1.